Shooting Star
by Apollo's Girl 319
Summary: Rachel has always hidden her darkness with her "star" attitude.  How does she cope and what friendships can she foster?  AU after Season 1's sectionals.


**Author's Note:** Please review and let me know if you like it. I'm just letting me take this where it wants. I started writing this in season 1 after the first 13 episodes. It'll be AU from there.

* * *

_The beauty of darkness is that often people can't truly see its beauty, its depth. She had cultivated a darkness around her that no one could see through. She masked it with gold stars. She couldn't let anyone see how she looked underneath - twisted and in pain._

_It hadn't always been this way, but then when has anyone ever started this way. It seemed the more she reached for her dreams the more she began to separate the person on the outside and who she was inside. She was like a shooting star: bright and glowing on the surface, but at the core nothing but hardened, sharp particles of debris._

_Her dreams were real - they were goals that she truly, desperately wanted. However, in the quest for it she found that many people wanted to tear her down. So she built this façade around her, this wall. The weapons used against her would seem to deflect, but in reality they just get buried deep within her, coming out only in the darkness, in the seclusion of her room, when the tears were allowed to flow freely._

_It took her a long time to build this image. Now it was firmly in place and she knew it would always stay._

* * *

"You really couldn't have just left it alone?" Mercedes asked as the other students filed out of the glee practice room.

"He deserved the truth!" Rachel stated. They had just shown Mr. Schue their performance of _My Life Would Suck Without You_. He left pretty soon afterwards, saying thank you and telling them how proud he was. As soon as he was out, the tension built up in the room. Puck, Quinn and Finn barely said anything to one another and all three quickly tried to get out of the room and away from one another.

Rachel was left with Mercedes and Kurt, both of whom were staring at her with righteous indignation.

"Don't try to play that _holier-than-thou_ act!" Kurt bit back. "We all know you just told him so that you can make a play at him."

"You all should have told him when you found out." Rachel argued back.

"It wasn't our place to tell. That was between Puck, Quinn and Finn." Mercedes replied. "You're such a trout mouth and selfish, self-indulgent, diva – in the bad sense."

"I'm the trout mouth? Who told everyone else?" She retorted.

"I know I shouldn't have, but at least I didn't tell it to hurt someone or to do it for selfish reasons like you. Only someone as awful as you would go and tell that to get someone else's boyfriend. All you've done is act like a slutty girl who can't stay away from other girl's boyfriends!"

Kurt and Mercedes shot menacing glares at Rachel and walked away. Rachel bit her lip and tried to calm herself down. Reminding herself that she couldn't let them see her cry, see her pain. She began the walk to her car. She found Finn standing at her car, and a smile began to spread over her face as she got closer.

"Finn," she said quietly alerting him to her presence. He looked up from staring at the ground to her. The look in his eyes shocking her, they were full of anger – towards her.

"Rachel." He seemed to spit her name out. Her mind raced to try to figure out how his friendliness from the previous day's sectionals changed so drastically to this.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" He was standing at his full height and looking at her while she started to shrink back. "My girlfriend has been lying to me about my being a father when it was my best friend who got her pregnant. Everyone knew but me, and you're asking me what's wrong?"

"It's just that you seem highly upset, which is understandable, but it seems rather directed to me when just yesterday we seemed to be in a more friendly camaraderie."

"Do you ever just speak normal?" He huffed. "I wouldn't have known any of this, everything would have been just fine if you haven't said anything. Now everything is messed up! Quinn's living with me and I can't even look at her. My best friend who I thought of as a brother betrayed me. I wouldn't have lost people I cared about in one go if it weren't for you!"

"I thought you would want to know that people have been lying to you!" Rachel replied, the tears from earlier threatening to shed again. "You weren't this upset yesterday!"

"I lost everything because of you. You broke everything Rachel! Just stay away from me – I ignored what people were saying, that you would do anything to get with me. I just didn't think you would destroy everything good in my life to do it!" Finn stalked away at this point, leaving Rachel to stand there stunned.

Every time she felt that she was doing something good for the team, or for someone it just fell apart around her. She couldn't believe he placed the blame on her for opening his eyes – it wasn't her fault that the people he loved hurt and lied to him. Not bothering to keep the tears at bay she just got in her car and drove home.

She pulled into her driveway and walked into her empty house. As much as her father's said she was the center of their universe, they spent most of the time away either at work or on trips. She rarely spent much time with them and was left most of the time on her own. She walked up to her room and dropped her stuff by the door. Closing it, she let herself lean against it as the tears continued to fall.

It hurt that everyone thought she was being selfish and hurtful when all she wanted to do was to help a friend – right a wrong. Then again she didn't know why she should think anyone would really see her. They never did. It was always the same since she was a child – no one ever saw the good in her, just the annoying person.

However, she knew that tomorrow she would have to pretend it didn't hurt, that none of what they did hurt her. For now though, she was going to take the safety of her room and cry it out until there was nothing left for tomorrow.


End file.
